Just say no!

Welcome back and I do pray all is well with you and yours. I also pray that some part of my journey is a blessing and inspiration to you. 

Not posting to my blog on Wednesdays makes me feel like I’m away from you for far too long, but duty calls. I hope you’ve been taking the time to catch up on your reading and don’t forget you my leave your comments and or questions after each post. Most seem to like to comment on my Facebook Page and that’s cool too.   

Let’s continue the walk. I left off with the startling, but not surprising news that I needed to have surgery to stop the pain.

It wasn’t even something I wanted to discuss with anyone or waste any time thinking about. When, was the only thing I wanted to hear! I felt a huge blessing coming on! The doctors exchanged a few words, stepped outside and came back about 30 minutes later. They said wanted to admit me right away, but the hospital could not be responsible for the financial cost if I had no other form of payment since my insurance was no more. The orthopedic doctors had agreed to do the surgery without the fee, but the hospital wasn’t willing to foot their portion of the bill. Dang! Dang and double dang!

I chose to come to this particular hospital because they knew much of my medical history, for their service in the area of medicine and social services department. I had been out of the states for a few years and my health insurance had long since lapsed. So I knew I was going to need some social intervention to get the care I needed. And like beautiful clock work a social worker showed up starting to hear my case.

 It was difficult to stay focused and awake to answer her question or ask her mine. I was in a place that I felt weighed down mentally and physically. I could barely lift my eyelid, that’s how heavy everything felt. My leg was still hurting though, but I just didn’t care about it hurting. The medicine helped not focus on the pain that was still there. I knew then that I didn’t want to rely on narcotic pain meds. It was so easy to see how they could become addictive. They promised me that I could forget the world, not think about the pain, but still feel the pain. Huh, what!? No thank you!

Did you know that Americans take 80%of the worlds pain medicine and are less than 5% of the world’s population!? Yep, uh huh! Guess we don’t want to grin and bear it or maybe that’s how so many people do grin and bear it. Yuk, not for me!  

The social worker was advocating for me to stay in the hospital, but I needed to get out of there and come back as soon as I took care of my Mother’s Memorial Service. I had been given thr honor to write her memoriam and organize the service. I couldn’t let it wait on me. I was hanging in there and I knew that GOD had this covered. I didn’t know how HE was going to work it out, but I knew it would work out.

Just as well, the hospital had not changed their position on the financial liability. I was discharged from the hospital with two prescriptions, one for extra strength Vicodin or rather it’s generic equivalent with acetaminophen (another pain med)and Ibuprofen. This painkilling cocktail barely took the edge off, but the next day I decided to only take the Ibuprofen even with the docotrs insisting I take all the medcine. The best thing for my pain was a hot Jacuzzi Bath with Epsom salt! 

Since I was house bound and most of the time on bed rest it gave me time to reflect on my true feelings about living in Gambia and my experiences. I come to realize how many of my ideas on life and Africa had changed: how I had grown mentally, emotionally and most of all spiritually. I began to realize how we as human beings idealize and idolize things that we know not. My reflections were beautiful and made me smile, even the ones that caused me to shudder and cringe.

 

                             Next time, sharing some reflections, hmmmmmm!